260: CFO2GO Success Story 

Michele Williams: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. With me today is Kate Wood of Worth Preserving. Kate partners with property owners, designers, architects, trades, and others to rescue, rehabilitate, and determine what is worth preserving in historic homes and buildings. Recently, Kate completed my CFO2GO program, and the results that she has had in just a few short months have been astounding. In this episode, we're going to talk to Kate to understand a little of her journey to reclaim the love she has for her work, to be able to make money doing it, and to have the ability to make magic as she works with her clients every day.

Empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.

Hi, Kate. Welcome to the podcast.

Kate Wood: Hi, Michele. I'm so excited to be here and talking to you. It's like stepping inside one of your favorite podcasts so it's just fun, to be on the interviewee's side.

Michele Williams: I love that idea of stepping into your favorite podcast. I never thought about it, but it's almost like, what's your favorite TV show or Netflix series and then getting to, like, get right in the middle of it. The same thing with them.

Kate Wood: Yeah. It's like suddenly I'm a character in my favorite series.

Michele Williams: Oh, I love that. Gosh, that gives me so many visuals. I love that you described it that way. So, Kate, you and I met at Luann Live, one of her events that she had in November of '23 in Florida. I think I don't even remember how many people, but two or three people I know came up to you and said, you need to meet Michele. I mean, a couple of them actually brought you over to me, and while you were standing there and they were introducing, other people were coming up. Yes, Kate, I told you to meet her. Yes, Kate, I told you to meet her. I thought it was funny cause I had heard your name from some of these people a while ago just talking about how you were in their area, that you were just really great at what you did, and that they hoped they got a chance to introduce us one day. That's the way I remember it, is you just kind of, I'm not going to say you were drug up to my booth, but I'm going to say that you were, invited heartily to come up to meet me at the booth. How do you remember that?

Kate Wood: Well, It's funny. I hope I don't sound like too much of a groupie, but I started listening to Luann's podcast I don't know, three or four years ago. I remember it was during COVID and I was just sort of grasping it, trying to kind of stay connected with things. It just opened up this whole world of people who in the interior design world, which I'm kind of adjacent to, I'm not an interior designer, but I really love this community. People like you, people like Rachel Bozek Johansson, Jennie Slingerland, all these people, we're kind of like celebrities to me.  I just learned so much from listening to you in conversation with Luan, with each other, and then just to be at Luan live, and you're all there, and you're all real people, and we're just connecting on all of these different levels. Then to have them introduce me to you, which I would have introduced myself to you anyway, but it's just to have this sort of community of trust. I mean, I really have grown to trust and just adore all of you. So I had the opportunity to coach with Rachel, to coach with Luan, to coach with you, and it's just. It's added so much to my business, but also just to me personally. So, thank you.

Michele Williams: Oh, you're so welcome. You know, I can speak for myself, and I've coached with Rachel, and I've worked with Luann on different things and we're actually coaching right now in the CFO2GO program. I'm helping her, which she's mentioned multiple times on her podcast, so I don't mind mentioning it, too. I wouldn't have mentioned it first, but she did. But I'll tell you what's been so interesting for me is, like, you realize we're all just people. I can even remember years ago, like, back in 2013 when I started coaching, specifically as a full-time, that's what I'm going to do, I'd close my drapery workroom, I'd sold the school that I owned for interiors, and I just was like, I'm going to move in a different path. I still was even blown away by some of the names and the people and the things. There's a great podcast that I follow sometimes by a young girl out in Texas. It's called “De-Influenced”. Her name is Dano Austin. Anyway, she goes in and kind of de-influences, like, what is the truth behind the perception. I love that. But I was very de-influenced when I got behind the scenes. In the interior design industry, I'm constantly de-influenced by their meaning. Just because we see beautiful pictures, beautiful homes, and beautiful designs, it does not mean that everything runs beautifully and smoothly with no difficulties behind the scenes. That's just not what it means. and I don't even think that it should. I mean, I think we should work well, but there is always something to work on. There is always something to improve. We're never completely done.

Building a business is an iterative process. So even though I knew that intellectually I would get people that came to work with me early on that were in the top 30 under 30 in Atlanta, or the top 40 under 40 over here, and they're scrambling, or they're close to bankruptcy, or they need to sell their home because they've got an IRS bill, they've not paid. Like, there were big challenges and problems that were not, I'm going to say, seen to the naked eye, but that was happening. If you just looked at who was the media darling of the day, they were out there. They were excellent, and everybody thought they were. They were great designers, they were great people, they were smart people, but they did not have support to solve some of the problems and the problems started compounding because they didn't stop and take time to look at them for a multitude of reasons. But that opened my eyes to realize that we're all just people. You know, what's that old adage? We all put our pants on one leg at a time. I think it's easy to forget that, to put people on pedestals, or to see people as being so different. But what I love in this industry is, I'm going to say nine times out of ten, because there's always the outlier, most people are so gracious and they're kind and they want to help you and they want to support you. Certainly, some things are going to come at a cost because we're all busy. But they have a heart to help you, to inspire you, and to move you forward. The same heart that I would say you have in your business to help and inspire your clients. You can't give everything away for free, but your heart truly is to help them not to misuse the relationship or to damage their home in any way or to, I don't know, screw up the deliverable. None of that is in our minds when we go into it. If I can remember that it allows me to be on even ground from being willing to introduce myself or being willing to say hello or being willing to acknowledge somebody's success and somebody's challenges. So, I'm glad that that's the feeling that you get as well. So, Kate, you have had a varied career. You have worked in a lot of different ways. Recently, you and I completed, my new CFO2GO program, but before we talk about that, I would really love for you to share with those who are listening a little bit of your business journey and kind of what you have been doing, and what got you to the Kate that came to Luann live in November of 23.

Kate Wood: Well, you're right. It has been an evolution. So, just to say my business is called Worth Preserving, and I help people figure out how to rehabilitate their historic homes or buildings if they don't live there, but mostly, I work with homeowners. I've evolved in the way I've described that. You know, I used to say I'm a historic preservation consultant, and people don't really understand what that is necessarily, but they do understand it because I think we've all been in that position where we want something, but we don't know how to do it. People come to me when they have bought a beautiful old house of their dreams. It needs a lot of work. They don't want to mess it up, and they just need somebody to guide them through it. How do they do it right? So, when I say I'm adjacent to interior design, I mean, that's a lot of what interior designers do, too. People come to them because they value their expertise. They need somebody to hold their hand and tell them what to do and walk them through it. I love working with interior designers because of that because we kind of come at it from the same approach. We want to help people do the right thing and feel good about the investment that they're making. My little angle on it is that I'm helping people strategize when it comes to their old house, their historic home, where there's something really valuable there that's worth preserving, which is why I called my company Worth Preserving.

Rewind 35 years,  I'm a teenager growing up in New Jersey, living in a 1920s Tudor revival-style house that my family worked with our bare hands to, in some ways, restore it, and in some ways, really mess it up. I feel like I'm still doing penance for some of the things that we did to that poor house. But I decided at that point that I really was interested in historic places, and I wanted to do anything that I could to be around them. My mother was a history teacher. My father was a university administrator. We would travel around to every battlefield, presidential library, and historic house in the country and abroad. So that was just normal life to me, that you help these places kind of move to the next level of their lives. I mean because buildings do have lives. So, I decided very early that's what I wanted to do. Everything was sort of tracked towards how do I practice this thing that I discovered called historic preservation. Eventually, I studied archaeology. I went to Columbia University to study historic preservation and urban planning. I had this must do good in the world kind of mindset. So, I worked for nearly 20 years running a community-based organization where we fought to preserve landmarks and historic districts in New York City, which, just imagine it's like you're telling the richest, most powerful people in the world what to do with their properties, and how do you think that goes over? Over 99% of the time, they have no interest in what you're saying. So, it was a grind. It was a total grind and, just mentally and physically exhausting. I believed in it with all of my heart, and that's why I was able to do it for so long. But at a certain point, I thought I want to work with people who want to hear what I have to say, and who value the same things that I value. Even if they can't identify it, even if they don't feel like “I'm a preservationist”, most people don't identify as preservationists, but once you start talking to them about what is it that they see in a house, what is it that speaks to them, there is that resonance that people who are old house people know that they're old house people. So, I wanted to be with them.

About seven years ago, I left the nonprofit world and started my own business, got my real estate license so I could spend even more time looking at old houses, and started Worth Preserving. So ever since that's what I've been doing. My geographic focus right now is the Hudson Valley of New York. So, it's about 2 hours north of New York City. I still have one foot in New York City, and one foot in the Hudson Valley. But I found through social media that I've been able to kind of build an audience of people throughout the country and again, old house people who just, they just love to talk about these things and hear about other people's experiences. And that's a great community as well. So, finding this kind of over between the interior designers, the architects, the contractors, the specialty trades, the people who own these properties, it's a wonderful place to live in.

Michele Williams: So, when you came to Luann live, what did you come hoping to do or to learn or to get away? Like, what need was driving you when you came outside of just knowing it was going to be fun and a great opportunity to talk to people?

Kate Wood: Well, I mean, so again, coming from a nonprofit background, I knew that for-profit business was a whole different thing. I felt like, okay, well, I can give myself permission to learn as I go to an extent, but I was finding after maybe five years that I was hustling a lot. I was working really hard. I was trying to do it all. I was trying to kind of be all things to all people. I was trying to be a designer. I was trying to be a project manager. I was trying to fix people's windows. I mean, just doing all different things, but also realizing that I wasn't very clearly articulating what it is that I actually do and ways that I can help people. So, people were kind of, learning about me by chance, by word of mouth and I really just wanted to become more intentional. I wanted to get really clear on what it is that I do, and how I serve people, and try to focus. I also felt like I just turned 50 this past year, and I am coming to business a little bit later in life, and I realized I also kind of had this feeling like, well, maybe I don't have that much runway. I need to kind of jump-start things. I need to move things up. I've sort of changed my mind about that. I feel like, no, I'm in a groove now. I'm doing something that I could see myself doing forever. So why am I putting so much pressure on myself to make it all happen in one year? But these are all things that you kind of have to work through.

When I came to Luann Live, I had just come off a year of coaching with Luann which was just a dream. I mean, it was just wonderful. I'm going to be on her podcast in a month or so, which is exciting because, again, it's just like, talking about a dream. She's been such a great mentor to me. For me to be able to give something back to her listeners is. Is really great. I was coming off of this year-long coaching program, which was so valuable to me, but also feeling a little bit like, okay, well, what now? Like, am I cut loose to just figure this out on my own now? So, I talked to Luann, and she said I think you should really consider coming to Luan Live. And I thought, you know what? I don't know. It's just like, you can come up with a million reasons why you shouldn't do something. I thought about it. I thought, when else am I going to have a chance to be in the same room as all of these people who I feel like I have so much to talk to them about and so much more to learn? I realized in just being able to walk around the tables and just talk to people and people like you and having that face-time and then going back and saying, okay, well, what do I need next? Like, what is the next right step for me? I felt like I came away from that event with two coaches, you and Heather Hansen, who was the emcee of that event, and you both have very different but complementary skill sets and focuses in your coaching. So, I knew that the financial side was something that I really just needed to get clarity on because I felt like I was doing something that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life, really, but I didn't quite understand how to make money doing it. I think it's probably the same boat as a lot of people. I just feel like I'm just going from commission to commission and not quite, quite understanding how does this fit together as a lucrative career. I mean, this is like, I'm not. I'm not doing this just because it's. I mean, this is something that I owe to myself and my family to bring home some income. Again, coming from a nonprofit background, it's like I got a steady paycheck, and I got benefits. So, it was kind of clear what the deal was. It wasn't a lot. I learned to live on not very much money. Then I go into for-profit business for myself. Is there money in the account? Yes, but what's it attached to? What's my forecast? How much of this is mine? I mean, all those questions.

Michele Williams: It's so much, isn't it? I grew up watching “This Old House” with Bob Villa.

Kate Wood: Oh, my, yes.

Michele Williams: Loved it. We would spend our Saturday afternoons watching “This Old House” with him and Norm. It was the thing that we did, my husband and I. We laughed about it. We don't have an old house right now, but what we do is we are constantly fixing and doing and updating our own house with all types of things that were probably inspired by “This Old House”, not necessarily by the homes that we grew up in. I think I mentioned to you we were looking at buying, I think the house was 1920s or 1890s. They're not many, because Sherman's tanks kind of came through Atlanta and cleared out a good big swarth of our old homes. But we do have some dotted around the southeast. We had been looking to go into one. We almost put an offer on one, and I'll tell you, you're right. I think you will know if you're an old house person or if you're not, because there were quite a few things in there that were awkward, but that had charm. So, then my thought was, okay, I'm going to need to get rid of all my furniture and start over, because the furniture I have, the scale of what I have, is not going to fit here. It wasn't let me come in and rip out the walls and rip out the floors and change this old house. It was more of, how do I edit and change, my life to fit into the house? That was kind of an aha for me, that, okay, I could see myself being there, because I'm not trying to force the house to fit me. I'm willing to change my life to fit the house.

My next thought, as we started talking through it, was that we could see some things that needed to be updated and fixed so that it could be airtight so that we could have heat, so that we could have basic kinds of things. The more we kept looking at it, the cost of the house wasn't exorbitant, but the cost of fixing it was huge. So, for that particular home, we bowed out. However, it made us start asking the questions, is this something we should keep, or is this something that can go, are we increasing the value by doing it this way or decreasing, just like you would if you bought an antique piece of furniture and you thought, I want to do I refinish it? Do I not refinish it? Are the scars good or are the scars bad? Should I paint it? Should I not? Right. All those questions that we ask with furniture, this is like a whole big piece of furniture that we're asking those questions at every twist and every turn. Where do I even find supplies to fix this? Who do I even know is a craftsman that can do this? There's so much involved in it, and it actually became pretty overwhelming to me because it's not something I've done. It was kind of like, we've got to really have a clear idea of what this is going to look like before we're going to buy this house before we're going to move forward this way. I think that's where one of the places that what you offer is so beautifully poised and situated, even if it's in a downloadable document, and you don't get to come to see my house because I'm in Georgia and you're not. Even if it was some document that told me what to do versus me being in the Hudson Valley and you being able to come over and look at the property and assess it. Just having somebody in that role, an advisor who can tell me what I should and should not do and doesn't work for the state because they're going to tell me what they want me. I want somebody personally invested in my good to come have that conversation.

So, when you were sharing with me in depth about what you did I can see the possibilities not only to support me, the homeowner, and we talked about this, but supporting designers who were like, my clients just bought this house. I've never worked in a home like that. They're bringing me in to do this, and I need that adjunct, I need that other skill set the same way that they would lean on an architect or a builder. Let me lean on somebody with a historic, deep understanding and how that works in the community who can then assist me while I'm choosing fabrics and choosing things, they can tell me this is in this period or this day or whatever. So, I immediately saw the picture when you called me of the kind of opportunity that's in front of you.

Kate Wood: Well, and I love how you're making me think. It's a metaphor, really, because I am, kind of like a coach to homeowners, to designers, to other team members, because it's like, I can be on the outside and see the whole picture. If you just invested in a historic home and you're listening to the contractors tell you that it's going to cost $100,000 to do that and $50,000 to do that, and then maybe you're working with the designer also, and the designer is saying we have this opportunity to do all these things, and you think I don't know if that's the right thing to do. I can look at it from the outside and say, okay, look, this is what's special about your home. This is what is special about your home, but we're not making a museum here. This is rehabilitation. This is about taking what's special about the past and marrying it, with what we need in the present and also thinking about the future. Is your family going to grow? Are you going to pass this on to your children? Is this your five-year home? Things like that. So, I'm able to kind of see things from the outside, tell you what I see from my place of expertise, and I think that that complements other people on the team so that everybody can kind of stay in their special lane, and we all bring our magic to it.

Michele Williams: And we're all working for the betterment of the home, for the client, or for the space.

Kate Wood: Right, exactly. I kind of see that. I mean, I think the more I got into coaching, it helped me see that about myself as a business. So, I believe in coaching, and now I believe in multiple coaches. It's a team effort, because, again, I came from a background where making money was not the point. There was no room for imperfection because you had this mission that you were trying to accomplish. And now I'm just in a totally different place where we are making magic here in these properties. You know, we're all pulling in the same direction. I think that that is the difference, and you were making something really special.

Michele Williams: And there is not a pre-planned idea of what the outcome should be. So there's creativity.

Kate Wood: Right. We're all defining different parameters. The interior designer is talking about programming and function and a whole other level of beauty, and the contractors telling you, like, what is and isn't possible, mechanically, or physically, structurally, and then the architect is doing their thing. But we're all kind of coming together and applying our strengths in ways that complement one another. So that has just brought so much more joy to the work that I do, and I don't think that I would have been able to see that without the work that I've been doing with my various coaches and through events like Luan Live. That's why it's important to kind of stay open to those things, and learn lessons that apply to the work inside your business as well.

Michele Williams: Yeah, I think about it and liken it to baseball. There is the coach of the baseball team, but there's a batting coach, there's the first base coach, there's a third base coach, and they each have a different view of the game and the sport. You know, in football, there are all the different types of coaches that they have because they are focused on a part. I focus holistically on the whole business but with a bent toward making sure that the financials support the strategy. I can't just do financials without looking at the overall business and strategy, and I can't do strategy without saying, what is that going to show up, like, with regards to the flow of money in and out of your business? You have some of the coaches that you mentioned, they're mindset coaches. There are 'Here's how to get the business started' coaches. They're marketing coaches. I've worked with multiple coaches in my business. We're never meant to do it alone. The minute we can let ego go and move it to the side and go, this is something I don't want to know. Do I want to learn it slowly and sometimes painfully by the school of hard knocks, or would I rather pay for somebody to give me some insight, fast track me and help me move there quicker, help me gain an insight that I don't have? I'm like you, I'm a big proponent of having a coach.

Kate Wood: I think, also just recognizing that it's not a one-shot kind of thing.

Michele Williams: Yeah, exactly, it’s not for one time like I've got one time with one coach, I'm done.

Kate Wood: Yeah, I'm going to do the CFO2GO program or whatever other program, and then I'm going to be fixed, and then everything is going to just be easy after that, it’s like, no. I felt like it just shifted my orientation enough and gave me some tools that I could then use to kind of get to the next guidepost.

Michele Williams: I love that idea of shifting orientation. It's true. What it does is it brings things into your awareness. I talk about business being like building blocks and that you can put them together in different ways. If you don't like the way it is, take it apart like Legos or K’nex, and we can move them around. What this is doing is giving you another building block, and then you can use that building block to build the next things. I mean, even in my coaching program, I have people who have worked with me for a full year in my TDIC or in my Elite program, they may step away and then they may come back to my Alumni program or come back to do CFO2GO because it's been a couple of years and they want to go back and have somebody come in and take that deep dive into their financials again and give them insight because the business they have now is not the business they had five years ago.

Kate Wood: Oh, yeah.

Michele Williams: So, it's just that repetitive getting help when you need it to fast-track you.

Kate Wood: Right. And then to realize, like, I wouldn't have even known what questions to ask you when we worked together three months ago, and I now keep a running log of these are questions I have for Michele. I know I will come m back to you at some point and we will go over those questions because I know that it's a relationship.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Kate Wood: That's what it's really all about. It's like building. It's building your team and your relationship with people who are going to help you.

Michele Williams: Your support system.

Kate Wood: Absolutely.

Michele Williams: So, I want to ask a couple of questions just to get your feedback and to let others hear your experience. The CFO2GO, we went through the CFO2GO light program, which is three in-depth strategy calls. We go through and we pull out all of your financials that you have. We ask for things like your P&L from this year and last year, and cash in and accrual. We ask for your balance sheets. We ask for payroll reports if you have them. We ask for a SWOT analysis, which could be new. We ask for your strategic plan. If you don't have those things, we will help you think through them. So, it's not like we're going, oh, sorry, you don't have to SWOT analysis, you can't come in. We have you do a couple of assessments so we can see and gather our thoughts and your thoughts around your financial understanding. Then the goal is through those to not only get you set up in Metrique, because that's the goal to have it help monitor you but to help you get that big understanding of, here's the strategy that I have for my company. This is what I'm trying to accomplish in the next year. Are the financials that I have set up in goals and in planning, are they in alignment with that so that I can depend on the financials to be there or to go get the financials that I need to do the work that I'm saying I need to do? Because there's nothing worse, Kate, than having a plan and then not having the financials to be able to put the plan into action. So, this three-meeting program is really what we're trying to do, is to just fast track it, to say, let's help you get this together quickly so that you can move on and go fill in the blanks. I think I described it to you as our goal is to help you create the picture on the front of the puzzle box and then put the edges together. We're going to help you put a border, and then you get to go work on the inside. We certainly will support you further if that's what you want, but you have the option to say, I just want to build this, and then I want to soak it in and try to do some on my own, and then I'll come back as you've described. How did it feel to you? Because I know some people sometimes go, I am so afraid to hand over some of this stuff because we are asking for it. It's me. I mean, we'd met, so you're trusting me, but you're giving me this information quickly.  We're not doing this long, drawn out, let's get to know you for three months. Oh, now, please hand me this. It's okay, you want to go. Let's go. Give it to me, and let's move forward. How did it feel to share that information and lay it out there?

Kate Wood: I actually love numbers. I love spreadsheets. I love to play with numbers. I love to fantasize about, like, if I make this much, then this but to me, it's like, it's not totally scary and miserable to deal with numbers. So, I actually love my money-tracking software. I love to kind of run reports and see what's happening, but I don't have enough information to know exactly what I'm looking at. So, the thing is I can see money in and I can see money out, but I don't know if that means that I can transfer money from my business account to my personal account. Can I afford to hire an assistant to help me with my social media? I think it was always this fear.

Michele Williams: Right.

Kate Wood: You know, I loved seeing the money, but I almost felt like Scrooge, stacking my gold coin up, because it was like I was in such scarcity mode. I just want to keep all this money here and don't know how to spend it. I've been there. I've been there with the huge credit card bill that I don't know how to pay or the oops, forgot to save for taxes and then have to pull money out of the IRA or whatever to cover that. So, I have been through enough painful things like that that I'm like, okay, I don't want that to happen again.

Michele Williams: We don't want that again, yeah.

Kate Wood: But I don't know how to take that information from all this tracking that I was doing and then project that into my business and how.

Michele Williams: To use it for your good, really? Right.

Kate Wood: Yeah. Am I profitable? Am I doing it? Can I afford to do this? Can I afford to pay myself? You know, all of these big questions that it was like, okay, well, if this is a business and I can't just sit here and count my money, I have to take some home and spend it and do things.

Michele Williams: Yeah. Enjoy it.

Kate Wood: Yeah, exactly. So I think that's how where I was when I came to you, and I knew that that was a priority for my own sense of self-worth. You know, it's like, I'm not just earning money. I'm actually bringing it home and able to spend it, but yeah. And just like, is this a real business?

Michele Williams: Yeah. One of the big things that we talked about with regard to what you brought to the table was that immediately we shifted the packages that you offered. I did that with you on the discovery call.

Kate Wood: That was, Yeah, exactly. That was, like, the first phone call, not even part of the program.

Michele Williams: No, that was the freebie. I was like, okay, no, no, honey, what are you doing? We're. No, no, no, no. You can do so much more and charge so much more. I really think you're undervaluing. And I didn't just say it like I've mentioned this before, I'm not the coach that just goes, oh, yeah, mark it up. Oh, yeah. Market up. Oh, you're charged more. I'm like, tell me what you're delivering. Give me the scope of work for what you're doing. And when you gave me the scope of work I asked you what you were trying to earn. Then I asked you how many hours it took. The math did itself in clear view. It wasn't just a gut feeling, I was using data immediately, and I was oh, Kate, no, no. What you're doing, we can shift, and you can make this, and it can look like this. I think the other thing that I remember very clearly was in some ways, you were finding yourself being pulled into some portion of the work that you didn't love as much, and you wanted a bit more control over who you said yes to do that full project management with and where you said no to a full project management, because that's the unknown. You could plan for the scope of work to design or give an analysis of the home or whatever. It's that ongoing support that kind of opened up the heart that you couldn't plan out as well. And then just honestly giving you permission and then pricing it appropriately so that if you were asked to do that and you wanted to say yes because it encouraged you and excited you and let that magic happen, then it allowed you to also be paid fairly for that work. Those were some kind of big shifts that we made. Then another one was honestly creating budgets for things like coaching and education so that you knew this amount of money I'm going to set aside for the learning and, the career path education that I have for this year. This money I'm setting aside to be able to bring some home. This money I'm setting aside for taxes, and this money is honestly just to build the company, to hire an assistant, or to get help in these other areas. So, it was segregating some of it out and being very intentional about not only the spending but what do you need to earn to be able to have the spending. We want an earning to match to the spending as much as we possibly can. Those are some of the really big things, one of them was, like you said immediately on the discovery call before we ever got to it. How did you feel on that discovery call? I think you were pretty excited.

Kate Wood: Oh, I was.

Michele Williams: Because we didn't even sell. We didn't even close the sale on the discovery call. You just kind of sat with it for a minute.

Kate Wood: But, yeah, it was like I could just do the part of my work that I enjoy the most and actually have a profitable business just based on that. So the service that we were talking about was where I do these site consultations, where I'll come and I'll meet with the homeowner and I'll go through.

Michele Williams: Or the designer.

Kate Wood: Or the designer. Yeah. It could be the whole team.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Kate Wood: To really just inventory what it is that's special here, that what, what do we need to make sure, no matter what, we're preserving these things? I always think of it as kind of cracking the code of the house, and that's why I love doing that. It's like detective work. just lights me up.

Michele Williams: Well, you can tell that, I mean, you had joy when you described it, and then there were other pieces and parts that you were describing, and I could just feel your energy coming way back down.

Kate Wood: Yeah. So, in my mind, I thought that the site consultations were just a one-off thing that I would do for people and that it might lead to something, or it might not. Or actually, no, it was more of kind of that was sort of the marketing piece I didn't need to get.

Michele Williams: It was a loss leader for you. It was a loss leader, but it was the thing you loved the most.

Kate Wood: Right, exactly. So, when you started talking and you put the label of what are your profit centers, and when I really looked at it, I was like, that could be it. That would be amazing if I could just do x number of these every year. There's my business right there and then everything else is there.

Michele Williams: You get to choose to say yes to the other things. So, we immediately shifted the business from, this is a loss leader to Wait this is actually the heartbeat of the business. This is the part that I love the most. I don't want to blow it off. It certainly can't be a loss leader. So, we repriced it on the discovery call based on the other financial inputs. Like you said, you had the data, so we use the data to inform a different pricing structure and honestly, a different offering structure. Then when we moved forward, which of course cleared up that the CFO2GO was going to work. So, we got started and moved in. I love that we even talked about in there, and you had, I think another coach that had mentioned something to you, but we talked about in there even just expanding and really connecting with the architects and the builders, because a lot of times they're going into these homes they don't have that expertise. They're just making the best decision they can make at the time. And really looking at the fact that it might be that in the past, homeowners were who you sold to the most, but that you really are that adjunct. That's when we really worked on your title and how you fit into what I'm going to put the umbrella of interior design. You are trusted. Just like they would call in the millwork person, or they would call in somebody who's going to do their window treatments, or a trusted professional to come in to talk to them about motorization or the areas that they are not as up on, having you as that resource to be able to call in was positive. So then building the package for the magic and the things that you love, that also supported the design community, that's where it got really fun.

Kate Wood: Yeah.

Michele Williams: Oh, my gosh. I get to do the stuff I love.

Kate Wood: Well, no, and I think I had this insecurity that I'd be stepping on somebody's toes. Like the interior designers or the contractors, the builders the architects, whoever would feel like, oh, no, no, no, we've got this all taken care of. Like we don't need you. We don't need yet another person there with their hand out asking for a cut of this project. And then I realized, no, wait, I need those people.

Michele Williams: And they need you, too. They don't know these things.

Kate Wood: We don't all have to do everything. So, I think, the conversation with you, where I was like, okay, maybe sometimes it makes sense for me to be in a quasi-design role, or maybe it makes sense for me to be in a project management role. But if all I'm doing is bringing that lens of what's worth preserving to this project that has incredible value in and of itself, and I don't have to get in anybody else's lane.

Michele Williams: Or apologize for what you're bringing to the work.

Kate Wood: Yeah, exactly. So, if I'm feeling that way, let me reach out and sort of shift because I have been doing some networking with different professionals, but let me just change the conversation a little bit. Like, ask more questions about what are the pain points that you're experiencing when you're working with old houses. What are your frustrations? People say well, it's the local authorities, or it's the fact that there are no qualified trades or things like this. It's like, ah, I have some solutions for that, so I can connect some dots.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Kate Wood: Yeah. I think really stepping into that. So, I mean, even though a lot of what we were talking about had to do with my books and different things, there was a lot of mindset.

Michele Williams: And strategy, because, again, we cannot look at our financials in a silo. It's not like our financials are to the right, and our strategy and our mindset and our plans are to the left. They have to intersect. And to me, that is the beauty of the CFO2GO program. Right. Or even the full-on, coaching that I do. It is the merging, that intersection between the strategy and the plan and who I am and what I'm trying to do and how I'm going to price it and how I'm going to manage the money and how I'm going to run it through my company. That intersection is where the magic happens for the business owner and for the business as a whole. Because if we keep them separate, we're constantly struggling on one side or the other. We either have money and no strategy to spend it, or we have a strategy and no money to spend it. It's kind of like, I've got so much in my bank account, can I pay myself or do I have no money in my bank account because I overpaid myself? Where's the happy medium that makes us feel good and doesn't have us so stressed at night? I'm curious, Kate, what were some of your key takeaways from the program? I shared what I remember and the big “a ha’s”.

Kate Wood: Yeah, I mean, that was a big one. But I think that going back to the mindset, you put your finger on it in a way that is so poignant for me, when you said, Kate, I'm not sure you're giving Worth Preserving your all. I was just like, what do you mean? This is everything to me. I am passionate about what I do and my business. But what you meant was you're holding back. There's something you're holding back, and it's kind of parallel to that hoarding sense of, like, I don't like I was almost frozen in certain ways. I have so much to give, but I wasn't sure exactly how to do it. So, I think that realizing that what was holding me back was lots of things that I didn't know. The insecurity about what to do with my money and being afraid of stepping into this business fully and losing parts of my life that I really value. Like, I love the flexibility of my life. I love working for myself. I love being fairly independent and flexible. I have a life. I have a family. I have two homes, one in the city, and one upstate. You know, there's a lot of spinning plates. Again, going back to my nonprofit training, you hustle, you work hard, and you scream as loud as you possibly can. The idea that you could have a successful business and not have to sacrifice in those days was just really eye-opening. And for you to kind of put your finger on what a profit center really could be, and the fact that that could be joyful and the fact that that could be the thing that I want to do when I wake up in the morning, whether I get paid for it or not, was just like, it was so enlightening and just like, okay, I could give my all to my business and be so thoroughly happy and joyful in it.

Michele Williams: And fulfilled, right?

Kate Wood: Fulfilled, absolutely. And kind of understanding that, okay, I don't have to spread myself across all these dimensions. I could be very focused, and not that that's where I want to keep the business. This is not necessarily what I want to do forever, but just the security of knowing I could do this forever, and that would be okay. This could be my niche, but what else could I do? It sort of gave me that. That sense of security also offered and opened the door.

Michele Williams: And permission, I think. I think it was about giving you permission to do what you loved. Pricing it well. One of the questions that I asked you was if this were somebody else's company, would you say that you've done every single thing you could possibly do to make it work? And if we can't answer that with a yes, then that means that even if it's our company, we didn't do every single thing. Like, we hold back out of fear that it's not going to work, that it's going to fail. What are they going to think? How am I going to be perceived? You know, all those things. And we had an opportunity in our, work together to see how you were viewing it under an old paradigm that honestly did not serve you, nor did it serve your future. What you believed was taking you to the left and what you wanted was to the right. And we had to bring those two things kind of into the same direction so that you could believe that what you were doing and you had the chops there. This isn't like a, we're just going to say that you're ten-foot tall Miss America. Like, I'm just saying it was all along, you had done the work, you had the chops, you had the experience, you had the knowledge, and you had the ability to put this into practice. What was happening was the processes, procedures, marketing, and messaging were not in alignment with what you were doing. Now, I am not a marketing coach, but I can easily find out and tell you when what you're putting down is not what we're picking up. That's easy for me to spot. For everybody except myself, because that's the way that it usually works. We can see it for everybody else, but it's harder to see it for ourselves. As Andrea Liebross, I think she says it's like being in a peanut butter jar. It's sticky in there. You can't see the outside. I can see the outside, but you're kind of stuck in the middle. And so just, just asking you the questions about where are you? Where have you done everything, tried everything, not holding back, priced it the way it needs to be priced, going after it in the marketplace as if you have no choice but to succeed at it? I mean, we all have to ask ourselves that question. I love that was a great transformational shift for you.

Kate Wood: Yeah. And I think that paired again because I was also doing the coaching with Heather Hansen at the time. She's all about self-advocacy and belief and energy and realizing, okay, that they're two parts of the same puzzle. It's like having that confidence. I mean, I always called it confident. I never would have thought of myself as a very confident person because I always tend to focus on what I don't know rather than what I do know. But, yeah, I mean, just hearing it reflected back to me, the expertise, the fact that I do have something to offer, I have a way of serving people in ways that no one else can.

Michele Williams: The market is open for that.

Kate Wood: Yeah, and it's not like I just said, okay, yeah, I'm going to charge this and then go out, and then I got what I was asking for that service within weeks of that conversation.

Michele Williams: I was going to ask you. So, we had a conversation, even on the phone before we started. We shifted your pricing and your packaging right there. We shifted all of it and increased it greatly, like three times what you had.

Kate Wood: Right, right.

Michele Williams: We immediately changed it. We started CFO2GO right behind it because you were like, oh, my gosh, right. We started CFO2GO and I want to say we were like four or five weeks in our work because there are three meetings, usually about two weeks apart, and on the day of our last meeting, tell the listeners what happened.

Kate Wood: That was the day that I looked at my bank account and I had more zeros in there than I had ever had before. It was because two of those packages had come through at the same time.

Michele Williams: And it was at the new price.

Kate Wood: At the new price. You got me onboarded with Metrique so that I could see what my monthly revenue goal was and I could chart it. I could see I'm going to hit that number this month and you expect a slow progression. You just want to see progress. I mean, at least that's how I felt. I felt like, all right, I'm not expecting to make like six figures the first month that I'm working with this. I had realistic expectations in that sense. And you even said like, hey, if you could just do better than last year, that would be a win. Right, right.

Michele Williams: Right, because usually by the time we start coaching with any program, you're already months into it and so that's months that you can't always recoup. So, it's giving yourself the freedom to put it into practice, not thinking that a year out is going to look just like it's going to look in the next three to six months. We've got to give ourselves a chance to turn things around. We've talked about being realistic in that, but you knocked it out of the part. I love it, they bought it at the new price and didn't blink.

Kate Wood: No. And that's the thing. It wasn't that I got it on the first try. I had to do discovery calls and so I sell, and so I had a few of, oh, great, we, love what you do, maybe we'll think about it, and so it was basically ‘no’s’. But it's the start of a conversation. So, I still didn't have proof that this was going to work, but I at least had proof that I was able to say it out loud and that this was my price and I was standing behind it.

Michele Williams: Let me stop here for just a second. I believe you also honored the fact that you knew what went into that scope of work, because before, when you told me the price, you told me everything that you did, and I went, wait a minute. How much time is that taking you?

Kate Wood: How many hours?

Michele Williams: And you almost did not want to tell me. I could feel it. You were almost like, oh, here it comes. Because I know, right? You were just not even telling yourself how much that time was. So, when you said the time to me, I was like, okay, we got to do the math, because this is not mathing to me, as they say. This was not mathing. So at least when you, then I'm going to say, recognize the value. We talk about worth a lot, but I want to talk about the value of what you brought as I talk about your knowledge, your expertise, your time, the value that you represent, and the stress relief, we priced for all of those five things. Then at least when they said no, you didn't feel that it was about you. It was about they didn't have the same alignment of values and time and worth that you did for the offering, and you didn't crumble. You kept presenting it.

Kate Wood: Yeah, absolutely. No, by that time, I had fully adopted that belief that this.

Michele Williams: This is the new price for this service.

Kate Wood: This is the price that makes sense, and it has value. The value is there. And so, and then, and then finally it didn't take that many tries. But when it did happen and it was with somebody who, I didn't really think it was going to work that time. I just went in, did my thing, and we had a great conversation, but I thought, you know what, it may not happen. And then when it did, it's just like, oh, okay. Then it happened again, and then it happened again, and then it happened again. So, it's like the fairy tale ending, which is just one more guidepost in the story that is quarter one of 2024, I made almost as much as I did in the entire year of 2023. That is a huge win. So even if I don't hit that audacious goal ambitious goal that we set.

Michele Williams: You're going to bypass ‘23.

Kate Wood: Yeah, exactly. And so, and there's such a sense of freedom that goes with that. It's like, okay, it works. I just, it's. It's a practice. I'm going to keep doing it every morning. I know what it is that I need to do. Every month, I'm going to go in and see where I am in terms of my numbers. It's also fun because of the software that you created. It's like you can play with the numbers. Like, what happens if I change this? What happens if I do that? And that's something that, again, like, I was so confused about going into this program. Like, I didn't know how to, like, I would run all these crazy numbers and be like, I don't know, I'm just making this up. But I think having the structure of the conversations, the work with you is I kind of understand what the rules are as far as how you can play with those numbers and what makes sense. That part has just sort of added to the fun of seeing, okay, where. Where are we at the end of April? You know? So that's been a pleasure.

Michele Williams: I cannot even tell you how fun it was working with you on CFO2GO, but also just supporting you and watching you put it into practice like it does me. Not that I don't love the people I work with, I work with amazing people and I love our time, but when they really embrace the work and they really take the work and put it into practice, and then they see the fruit of that work and they see the outcomes and they see the deliverables, like, I can't tell you anything that makes me happier than to see you successful because you've done the hard work. Like, I just look at my role as coming along to fill in some blanks and to guide you on something so that you can go back and do your magic. Because here's the truth. You know this, and I know this because you were feeling it and I know you were feeling it. You voiced it. I felt it before, too. If I don't feel like I'm making the money for the value and the time and all the things that I'm doing, it takes the joy out of what I'm doing even if I would almost do it for free, even if it's the thing that I love doing if I cannot see any outcome from it, either me being paid or lives being changed, at some point, the joy in the doing is so diminished that I'm defeated by the thing that I loved, and that brought me joy. And then I can't help people, and then I don't want to sell more. Right.

Michele Williams: The magic's gone. I don't want to sell more. I mean, I've worked with designers who said they don't care if another person buys my job or buys my design. I'm like, what do you mean? They're so tired. They're so burned out. They're so overwhelmed. They've had a really bad project or a really bad client, and it does a number on us. Until we can kind of get out of it and see around ourselves a little bit more, put some things back into perspective, realign what we're doing, who we're doing it for. That's why, if you work with many of us coaches around here, I know we almost always go back to What is your mission? What is your vision? What are your values? What are your goals? We're not doing it just because we're all bored, and we're told that's what to do. It is because it really drives the business, it drives the choices we make. It drives the decisions, it drives the money, it drives everything. And when it doesn't is when we start to feel off. Right? That's really what we did for you. We sat down and said, “Tell me what you do. Who do you do it for? How do you do it?” Like, all that work that you had been doing with other coaches, you had amassed, the answers to the questions. So, you brought it. Tell me what we're trying to accomplish in the business. What is the strategy? Back a napkin. Don't care. What is it that you're trying to do? Where would you be happy for this year? Like, I know what you might want for three and five, but where will you be happy if we can get to in December? Because, like you said, we can't get there. The runway is longer than we think it is, and we've got to give ourselves time to build roots and to spread out and to get things done.

So, we've got to be kind to ourselves. Where do you want to be by December? All right, so, now we have who you are, who you serve, and what you do. now we have your strategy. We can see it clearly. Now let's put the numbers to the strategy. I even went as far as asking you, because you talked a minute ago about building this business and not wanting to give up all of your time or give up the ability to travel and I said, what are your nonnegotiables? How do we build this within 30 hours a week or 20 hours a week? Tell me how much time you have that plays into it. I think we don't look at that. I'll have people that I'll ask them, how many hours a week do you work? And they're giving me numbers like 50 and 60. And I'm like, no, you're not allowed to give me more than 40. You can't do it in 40 hours, we've got to fix it. If you plan for 50, it's going to take you 60. So, let's not do that. But you, you said, I want to work in this timeframe. This is kind of the schedule of the life that I'm trying to build and what I want to do and then we built within that structure. That's what I think is so important for the listeners. This isn't just, again, playing your financials to the left, playing your strategy to the right, planning your calendar somewhere over here, it's making all these things line up so that if you're doing what you say you want to do and building in some white space to breathe, we've got to build that in, and if we can do that, then we're going to be in alignment with our offerings and the pricing and then the outcome.

Kate Wood: Right. I mean, it all sounds almost too perfect. That's what I want to emphasize, that is that it's a process, it's a practice, it's something that I know I am going to come back to again and again. Because it was not just three sessions and we're done. I go back to my final report and I am in Metrique every month putting in my numbers and making adjustments.

Michele Williams: Yeah, it's a for now. That's what we talked about. It was the for now. This is. This is the plan for now.

Kate Wood: Right, exactly. It is a constant tweaking and evolution and I'm just excited about the business now because I do think of it as a business that has value and not just to me, but to other people. So, it does make me want to give it my.

Michele Williams: I told you when we started the call today, I said, I see a light in your eyes. I see a joy. That was a little different than when we started. Not that you weren't a joyful person, but I could feel the weight of these are the things I've tried, these are the things I've done, and I'm not getting the outcome that I wanted. I could feel the weight. Now, I've got to tell you, you really got my brain going with calling this a practice, because I keep thinking of my Pilates practice and my yoga practice, and in Pilates, they always say, do what you can with the body that you walked in with today and that's always freeing, because some days, like, my hips hurting or my shoulders hurting or my body won't do this or won't do that, and they're giving me permission that today is what you have let's work with it. Thinking about our financials as a practice gives us the ability to continually practice getting them and keeping them in alignment with all the things that we're doing. So, thank you for that phrasing. I think it's so true.

Kate Wood: We're always leveling up.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Kate Wood: It's like, that's just the natural progression of practice, is you level up, and then you plateau for a while, and then you level up again.

Michele Williams: That's right.

Kate Wood: So, I fully see myself going into intensive financial coaching mode again at some point in the future because I'll be ready for it. I was ready for it when I started with you, and now I feel like, okay, let's just see how this goes for a while and practice.

Michele Williams: Yeah, let's put it into practice. I love it.

Kate Wood: Yeah, exactly. And then let's see where we are in six months.

Michele Williams: I love it.

Kate Wood: Okay.

Michele Williams: This has been such a delightful conversation. I'm so, so happy for your success and for you seeing how putting all of the pieces together in your business is serving you and serving your community. You've got something for the listeners. Tell us about that.

Kate Wood: Okay. So, because of our work together, I have been thinking hard about the relationship with interior designers, and what is it that interior designers could benefit from. Of, course, I am open to talking to anybody. I have a calendar link. You can sign up for a half-hour phone call with me anytime. I would love that. But if you just want to do, like, a quick download, I've got something that I put together, which I'm calling “Worth Preserving: A Guide for Interior Designers for Historic Character”. Interior designers are they're the pros when it comes to spaces and analyzing space and program and seeing the vision, but not to be intimidated by these old houses that have their quirks, they have lots of patina, lots of layers, things that maybe make sense, things that don't make sense, but also a lot of beauty. This guide that I put together helps walk you through how to read buildings, how to read old houses, and really identify what gives them their special character. It's pulling together resources from the National Park Service, different historians, and different practitioners in historic preservation and trying to make it very accessible for anybody who cares about these issues but may not know where to start. It's about ten pages, but lots of illustrations and hopefully very clear language. I would love for people to download that and again, to have a conversation. I love to hear what people are up to in their adventures with old houses.

Michele Williams: That's amazing. We'll make sure that we link that in our show notes. And, Kate, where are you hanging out on social media?

Kate Wood: So I'm WorthPreserving, and that's my website, worthpreserving.com. And, yeah, I've been putting out a lot of videos and trying to keep it real and just providing as much information as I can. I'm also on YouTube. YouTube is Kate Wood Worth Preserving. So, yeah, I'm just having. Trying to have a lot of fun.

Michele Williams: Well, thank you. It was such a pleasure talking to you.

Kate Wood: Thank you so much, Michele. I just. I really can't say enough. It's like you were on a pedestal for me before, and now you're a real human being who is part of my life, and I just really appreciate you so much.

Michele Williams: Oh, you're so welcome. I love this work, and I love that you trusted me to do it with you. So, thank you.

Kate Wood: Thank you.

Michele Williams: Have a good day.

Kate Wood: You too.

Michele Williams: Kate, thank you so much for such a great episode and just being free and open to pull back the curtain on your business to tell us a little bit about your journey. If any part of Kate's journey resonates with you and you're thinking, I want to really dial in on what I'm offering and how much we're charging for it and how that fits in with the strategy that we have, and can I pay myself? Can I not pay myself? Should I buy a building? Should I not buy a building? How do I understand the intersection of my strategy and my financials? I'm going to tell you that there's help out there and that we can help you do that. So please reach out. You can sign up for a discovery call with me, or you can just go right ahead and purchase CFO2GO, and let's get you going. Every day. Choose to be profitable because profit doesn't happen by accident.

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